STATE OF THE ART

Lorna May Wadsworth, one of our most acclaimed portrait painters, has painted the great and the good from the world of politics, entertainment and beyond, including Derek Jacobi, Richard Curtis, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams and a six-foot painting of Baroness Thatcher in 2007, when Laura was just 26. It was the last formal portrait the Iron Lady ever sat for.

“It was a phenomenal experience. It was all I could do not to curtsy when I went into the room and met her for the first time, she was so stately and regal,” Laura remembers. “But she was very kind . . . she would move furniture around her room to [help me] get the best light – I had to stop her from picking chairs up!

“She also had the generosity to let me finish the painting before she saw it . . . I got very worried at the end of the first sitting that I wasn’t going to be allowed back again the next week . . . but she said to me . . . ‘Now, Lorna, may I see the painting or are you the kind of artist that only shows people their work when it’s finished?’ and it was like she’d just given me this huge life-raft because [at that point] I was petrified!”

Described by international art dealer Philip Mould OBE as “arguably the boldest formal life portrait of a prime minister ever painted in Britain”, it’s on display as part of an unmissable retrospective of the artist’s work.

Gaze: A Retrospective of Portraits by Lorna May Wadsworth runs until 15 Feb. Graves Gallery, Sheffield.